"In those days, no palliating circumstances occurred to me, neither the timidity natural to my sixteen years, nor the horror that would have filled the solemn space if I had told the truth, nay I did not even think of the true motive of my decision, the grief I should have caused my dear father by a step so unprecedented. I heard only my own voice professing a religion of which my heart knew nothing, nay which to myself I had even clearly refuted, openly refused, and yet now acknowledged as the substance of my deepest thoughts and feelings. It weighed upon my conscience like a perjury; then I burned the books.
"Why have I now commenced a new one? What have I to discuss with myself? Ah! the silence which I have become accustomed to keep, because I fear the sound of my own thoughts, has at last reached such a point that nature and the world and my own heart are also dumb to me. There is no one to whom I could utter my secret feelings. My father would be frightened if he should see such deep gulfs and lonely heights in my soul. Aunt Valentin speaks a different language, and others who come to the house take me for a strange and not very lovable girl, who has few attractions.
"It's all the same. On the whole, silence makes us far happier; but we ought not to forget to talk to ourselves. I will practice the art again. Hitherto I have always lived at peace with myself, except for that one great discord.
"And that--I have now clearly perceived it--is the fault of the bad habit of expecting young people, just as they are beginning to suspect the value of words, the difficulty of the enigma of the world, the depths of the abysses of life, to be contented with a few answers learned by rote to the most mysterious questions! It is cruel, to compel them either to carelessly cast aside every doubt, in obedience to the exhortations of a good man, who by virtue of his office is not permitted to doubt, or the tremendous courage to step forward before a whole congregation and reveal the inmost depths of their souls!
"The objections I ventured to make during the time of instruction were all so easily refuted--with the theological self-sufficiency and supreme wisdom against which there can be no debate, since it refers every spiritual doubt to the poor hypercritic's conscience, and instead of any real arguments has only the inscrutable retort: 'we must pray to God for faith, and he will bestow it.' Is not that like saying that when I am hungry and ask for bread, I can have an opiate, that I may forget my wants and dream of full dishes? Thoughts disturb me, and to escape from their conflict, I must pray for thoughtlessness?
"But they are happy and wish others to have the same joy. If only the same food satisfied and nourished all!--
"May 10th.--I have been driving about the city with Aunt Valentin, buying all sorts of things. While we were so engaged she took advantage of the opportunity to labor again at my poor soul, which I thought she had given up as hopeless. But she really loves me, and therefore does not weary in constantly directing my attention to what renders her happy. I said very little in reply. There was so much noise and bustle in the streets, I had not felt cheerful and gay for so long a time, why should I spoil my enjoyment of the beautiful sunlight with arguments and self-defense? But at last, when we were again approaching our little house, in order not to delude her with false hopes, I remarked that I certainly greatly needed redemption and often longed for it with bitter pain. Yet how was I to feel love for a Saviour who did not answer my questions, did not know my sad thoughts, and stood before me as a sinless, perfect god-man. The mystical act of dying to rescue erring humanity has always been incomprehensible to me. Single beautiful rays of his nature shining through his doctrine might have warmed me; but I needed not only to be warmed but enlightened, and besides the wants of the heart, about which I am never uncertain, I have other needs, which the catechism does not still, and which--even if they are unnecessary or wrong--no dogmatic words can soothe.
"My dear father who was just going out, met us and interrupted Aunt Valentin's reply. No theological subjects are ever discussed before him, he has positively forbidden it. His relations toward God and all 'that is not of this world,' fill his whole nature so completely, that he himself says it is like a second health. If we speak of it, we must already be half sick, as we usually do not feel it at all. I envy him the happy certainty of constant intercourse with his God, who is as living a presence to him, as if he could see him with his eyes and touch him with his hands. I, on the contrary, always feel alone with myself, my human heart, my human thoughts; Aunt Valentin calls it godless, I call it god-forsaken. But is it my fault, that it is so? Have I not honestly sought him in tears and despair, the nearer the time came when I was to confess him in public? And he has not suffered me to find him!
"Evening.--I have been obliged to finish a piece of work, a vase designed for a wedding gift, roses and sprays of myrtle with the interlaced initials of both names in the centre. I can understand how my father is so 'satisfied in his God.' He has a much less exacting heart, and is also content with his art, while my half-way talent shames me. This too is a matter of temperament. It is an impossible thought that we must wish (that is pray) to close our eyes to our own deficiencies, to be satisfied with trivial things. It is well not to murmur, to submit to what cannot be altered, but to falsify our own judgment for the sake of so-called contentment--I shrink from it as from a heinous sin.
"Perhaps if I had great talent, or any high, difficult life-work taxing my energies, I might sooner cease to brood over inscrutable things. He who creates something in which he can himself believe, will perhaps in time lose his curiosity or the anxious desire to understand what has been created around him. He knows or imagines he knows why he lives. Each day seems to show him. I, on the contrary--if I were not necessary to my father--